Points of Pride

Fellows from the Institute for Social Innovation (ISI) pursue consulting work and research projects that bring about innovation and change for individuals, organizations, and communities. Several ISI fellows gathered at winter session to share and present updates on their work in areas of education, leadership, politics, incarceration, healthcare, and social change.

Silvina Bamrungpong and Drew Foley (HOD '12)

During the past year, Drs. Drew Foley and Silvina Bamrungpong have shared their research on Learning in Motion – Designing Connected Learning Spaces through conference presentations and workshops for innovative thinkers in the fields of education and business.

In October, Drs. Foley and Bamrungpong conducted a workshop at the Innovative Pedagogy and eLearning Conference at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. The workshop focused on two central concepts: 1) Learning is in motion and 2) Learning spaces are connected. They collaborated with educators and researchers with affiliations ranging from the London School of Economics to universities in Africa, Australia, South America, and Asia.

In 2015, they plan to publish a book that focuses on application of their research.

Dr. Zieva Dauber Konvisser presented an update on her research project on the implications and impact of wrongful conviction on innocent individuals and the findings from interviews with 21 innocent women in the United States. This study provides the wrongfully convicted women an opportunity to give voice to their lived experiences and the strategies that helped them cope with their situations and move forward.

Dr. Konvisser also reported on the numerous publishing and promotional activities related to the 2014 release of her book, Living Beyond Terrorism: Israeli Stories of Hope and Healing (Gefen Publishing), which is based on interviews that were conducted as part of her doctoral and post-doctoral research studies.

Her latest collaborative project on exonerees in the innocence movement involves Wayne State University Criminal Justice Professor Marvin Zalman and looks at the effects of this work on the innocence movement and the lives of participants.

Susan Mazer (HOD ‘11) In the two years since her graduation, Dr. Susan Mazer has entered a different dialogue within healthcare and within the academic music community. Her presentation provided an overview of both what has been achieved and what is in process regarding improving the patient experience and quality of caring.

Linda Honold (HOD ’99) To ensure a healthy vibrant democracy our political structures must engage citizens, be fair and transparent. Dr. Linda Honold’s case studies of state redistricting campaigns are critical because if the process does not fairly represent us our democracy is at risk.

She is conducting five studies of reform efforts in California, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and states limited to legislative reform efforts. Data derived from interviews with activists and other primary players will be analyzed to discern activities and events contributing to the outcome of the effort revealing commonalities and differences. These lessons learned might then be used to inform plans for other ballot initiatives that advocates in other states engage in.

Susan Stillman (ELC '07) Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the ability to use emotions, combined with cognition, to make optimal decisions. Emotions affect how and what we learn. Scholar/practitioners have demonstrated how critical it is for all students and the adults who care for them to learn the skills of EQ, or Social Emotional Learning as it is called in education. Emotional literacy, consequential thinking, emotional navigation, optimism, and empathy, are a few of the skills that comprise SEL.

Dr. Susan Stillman shared the iterative process used to develop the free online course, Introduction to Social Emotional Learning. She also discussed how participants in the ISI session can become involved in the project to share iSEL with thousands of educators worldwide.

Stephen White (MP '13)

Stephen White's current research centers on a social innovation in the film issue space: the emergence of an online convener platform called FilmRaise. The website was created to allow the audience to watch a social issue documentary film and choose a charity to donate to for free. He hopes to explore whether measures that are used to evaluate and promote people’s subjective well-being or happiness, can be used to shape content and measure impact for media makers trying to bring about positive social change.

The Magic of Mentoring: Pearls of Wisdom is a collection of short stories written by 47 contributors, or “Pearls,” who believe that mentoring is the key to success for young people today. Each contributor’s story shares a personal journey on how their lives were changed for the better because of mentoring. According to Perkins, there is an overwhelming need to find perfect matches for children in cities across this nation in need of all the benefits that positive mentoring will bring to their lives.

This second volume in Fielding’s Monograph Series features six articles on the cultural ramifications of the psychotherapy relationship, based on recent dissertations by Fielding graduates. Edited by Sherry L. Hatcher, the studies explore unique socio-cultural aspects of the therapy relationship.

• Jessie Whitehorse Lopez’s article, co-authored by Robert L. Hatcher, tells us about Native American psychotherapy clients: how they evaluate standard measures of alliance, and which criteria they propose to add in order to foster trust in the therapy relationship.

• Christine Mok-Lammé reminds us to avoid stereotyping. Her article illustrates common expectations about what Chinese American psychotherapy clients want from their therapy, in terms of either cognitive or emotion-based interventions.

• Arielle Schwartz takes us into “new age” culture by asking what psychologists think about embedding mind-body methods in their work, such as the use of relaxation techniques, mindfulness practices, and more. She discovered interesting discrepancies between the mind-body techniques that psychologists value personally, and those that they are disinclined to incorporate into their professional work.

• The article by Shanna Jackson looks at parallel cultures of abuse and what happens when therapists, who have themselves suffered abuse and trauma, treat clients with a similar history. The potential for “vicarious traumatization” suggests that methods that typically promote therapist empathy may instead have the potential to unwittingly retraumatize some therapists.

• Chaya Rubin and Comfort Shields explore the culture of therapists’ judgments, based on archival data from a study published by the editor of this issue. They investigate the question of whether the perceived culpability or vulnerability of a psychotherapy client may affect a therapist’s ability to empathize with that client.

• Michelle Horowitz introduces the reader to an exponentially expanding culture of social media and, in particular, how the delivery of electronically-mediated psychotherapy may positively and/or negatively impact the therapeutic relationship.

In this third volume of Fielding's Monograph six articles broaden the boundaries of Media Psychology, a field that Fielding introduced as a doctoral discipline in 2003. This volume illustrates the range of topics that the media psychology discipline can encompass, as illustrated by the recent dissertation research of six media psychology alumni.

• Gordon Goodman’s study examines one medium of entertainment long ignored by psychologists, namely the stage. An accomplished actor and director in his own right, Dr. Goodman asked whether stage fright, popularly associated with young and inexperienced actors, continues to vex accomplished, veteran actors.

• The article by Jennifer Johnston summarizes her groundbreaking study on childhood exposure to pornography, a dominant genre in virtually all media, and the effects of such exposure on sexual satisfaction in adulthood. Dr. Johnson’s findings show that early exposure to pornography can increase sexual satisfaction when mediated by sexual experience.

• Jonny White addresses the realm of storytelling. Based on five in-depth interviews with accomplished authors of fiction, augmented by additional case study material, Dr. White concluded that authors benefit from stepping outside of their societal narrative conventions in order to develop new perspectives for storytelling.

• In her article, Bernadette Chitunya-Wilson underscores the enduring power of one of our culture’s most important legacy media: television. Her inquiry probes the question of whether frequent viewing of reality TV shows involving cosmetic surgery actually fosters a desire among viewers to undergo cosmetic surgery themselves.

• Alicia Vitagliano turns our attention to another legacy platform, namely, print journalism covering the field of professional sports. Given that the number of female sports journalists has grown in recent decades since the adoption of Title IX in 1972, she wonders whether a reader’s gender and internalized sexism would affect his or her views towards a sports article written by a female journalist.

• Ivone Umar examines the role of the Internet in an area largely overlooked by American scholars: the ability of students born in Latin America to integrate within an American college community in the United States. Dr. Umar’s data show that the use of the Internet in the host language—English—was a positive factor in the acculturation process, whereas the use of the Internet in the student’s native language was correlated with a slower acculturation on an American English-speaking campus.